christmas-stollen

Getting a Bit Stale?

If you’re anything like our family, we have Christmas cake left way beyond Christmas (have you still got any in a tin somewhere?). That’s not a problem, because fruit cake will last and last. But have you ever gone to a tin and found a bit of sponge cake that was a bit dry …

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All Dernier Publishing books collage

Read

Last week we looked at defining our ideal readers. This is a pretty basic starting point for writing a relevant, engaging story.

Here’s something else that’s absolutely foundational to writing… every writer has to be a…

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fantasy landscape

Who Holds the Key?

What do you think is the most important element of every story? What is it that makes a novel worth reading, for you?

Is it:

The plot?
The setting?
The length?
The author’s…

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forest in the autumn

Two words or one: Part II

Last week we looked at the quote from Thomas Jefferson: “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

We talked about cutting unnecessary words… However, there is another side to this quote:

Sometimes you need…

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